Throwing Out Old Cemetary Remains. Where Does This Lead?

[SGOS]

http://news.yahoo.com/jewish-cemetery-los-angeles-sued-throwing-remains-230317373.html

Crazy stuff!  This cemetery is not the first.  It's happened before.  Chicago had a big scandal a few years ago about digging up the dead and dumping them like garbage to make room for new dead.  Whether we care about the dead or not, it seems to me that the cemetery would be in breach of some contract.  But I've wondered about this before. 

You buy a grave plot for your remains, but when you are dead, you obviously can no longer claim to own it.  It's not like your kids inherit the plot.  After a few generations, there is nobody around to own the plot.  Does the cemetery own it?  Supposedly, they sold it.  Do they get to claim it back?  Has anyone ever thought this through?

How does the cemetery continue to make money after all the space is used up?  Do they just go bankrupt and sell the property?  Eventually, all land will be used up for the burial of all of the dead people.  Nothing will be left to farm or build homes on.  What is the eventual logical conclusion to all this?

[Munch]

more humans around the world means more graves piling on top of one another.

This is why I want to be cremated, sooner become some ash that gets absorbed into the atmosphere then digging up more land.

[SGOS]

Cremation does seem like the only alternative, and I specify that in my own will, but for many people, the concept is repugnant.  Although, I'm not sure why pumping toxic environmental hazards into your dead body and then slowly turning into a green mold would be preferred.

[stromboli]

Cremation does seem like the only alternative, and I specify that in my own will, but for many people, the concept is repugnant.  Although, I'm not sure why pumping toxic environmental hazards into your dead body and then slowly turning into a green mold would be preferred.

so shot out of a cannon into the Snake River isn't a thing?

[SGOS]

so shot out of a cannon into the Snake River isn't a thing?

It would be OK if it were just a few adventurous types, but if it catches on and everyone starts doing it, we'd have dead bodies flying all over the place.

[Aridhale]

On the island where my grandparents grew up in Portugal every couple of decades they have to dig up old graves and throw the remains into the ocean. The island is just too small to hold the amount of graves required. It is unfortunate but the world isn't unlimited in space.

Personally I would rather decompose normally and give back nutrients to the planet than sit there pumped up full of chemicals.

http://www.capsulamundi.it/progetto_eng.html

[AllPurposeAtheist]

Burial at sea... The ocean has plenty of space and who knows? You might end up on the dinner table as a Mrs Paul's fish stick..
If you were an honorably discharged veteran it's free except for the transportation of your corpse to the nearest naval yard that does burial at sea.

[Aroura33]

Honestly, the only value I see in old cemeteries is historical. It's educational to go around a cemetery from 150 years ago and see all the dead babies, dead young women, dead boys from war, etc.

But yeah, aside from a few historical sites I hope they never dig up, I wish they would stop burying people at all.  Now organically buried to become part of nature is one thing, but what we do with chemicals and a coffin to preserve is repugnant to me.

I actually want my body donated to science.  If that doesn't work out, my second choice is cremation. 

[AllPurposeAtheist]

I might donate my body to the institute of porn nobody ever wanted to watch..

[trdsf]

I find cemeteries interesting sociologically and historically... but my body is going to the local medical college so a student can learn a technique that might save someone's life (or even just quality of life) later on.  I mean, at that stage it's just meat, it might as well serve a purpose greater than Purina Worm Chow.  I consider burial (and the veneration of the grave site) to be both morbid and a strange form of ancestor worship.  Sure, I miss my deceased relatives -- but I also know that their "spirits" aren't "watching over me" and we're not going to see each other again in any purported afterlife.  If I visit, for example, my grandfather's grave, that's to fulfill something inside me that misses having him around.  It surely makes no difference to him anymore.

[SGOS]

I consider burial (and the veneration of the grave site) to be both morbid and a strange form of ancestor worship.

How about the part at the wake, with the corpse lying in an open coffin, and people dropping buy commenting on how good he looks: 

"Hey, they did a pretty good job on old Henry. Don't you think?" 

"Yep, they dressed him in the same suit he got married in." 

"Don't remember him looking quite that way, but it's close enough, I suppose."

"Yep.  He's in a better place."

[Solitary]

I told my Catholic wife I wanted to be cremated and my ashes flushed down the toilet. I thought she was going to have a stroke. This has always drove me nut, even as a kid. When there is a dead body, why do people still call the body by a name (Joe there was such a good person, he always went to church.) instead of the body of whoever. What's weird about this, is if people believe we have a soul, why are they so concerned for the body that isn't the person? I just can't identify a dead body as a person, never could. Even my mother and dad, or sisters were not what they were alive to me. I have had close friends I loved and never will see again, to me it is just liked they died, and may have. The fact that I may see them again, but probably not, and I can't let go, bothers me more than knowing I never will again.  Goodbye old, hello new! Solitary

[stromboli]

Soylent Green is the only real solution. Have a little tag in the corner "in memory of _________ 1990- 2026" Problem solved. 

[trdsf]

How about the part at the wake, with the corpse lying in an open coffin, and people dropping buy commenting on how good he looks: 

"Hey, they did a pretty good job on old Henry. Don't you think?" 

"Yep, they dressed him in the same suit he got married in." 

"Don't remember him looking quite that way, but it's close enough, I suppose."

"Yep.  He's in a better place."

Yes, thank you for putting your finger on something that ALWAYS bothered me.

I never did ask a priest why, if whoever's died under whatever circumstances is "in a better place", why is suicide a mortal sin, and why do people fear death in the first place?

(although our wakes never had the, ah, guest of honor present -- we always had ours after the funeral proper)

[SGOS]

(although our wakes never had the, ah, guest of honor present -- we always had ours after the funeral proper)

That's what they were all like where I grew up (in the Chicago area).  They would last 5 days or so.  The dead guy would lie there 24/7, but family usually showed up just after dinner to greet friends, who would stop buy and offer their condolences.  The funeral parlor got crowded sometimes, but they had several visiting areas and each family had one of the rooms to themselves so you wouldn't get mixed up with a bunch of strangers.  After I moved to Montana, the wake thing didn't seem to be something that was done much, if at all.  So it's probably a cultural background kind of thing.

When my grandfather was in his 80s, he would just drop by the funeral parlor to see if there was anyone he knew there.  If he didn't know the dead guy, which was undoubtedly most of the time, he would often run into old friends since he had lived in the neighborhood for 50 years or so.  So he could visit with his buddies.